Boulder County's vitality is fueled to a great degree by its thriving scientific and technological communities, and much of what happens on that front is driven by the innovation that springs from a sprawling campus in the shadow of the Flatirons.

The U.S. Department of Commerce campus at 325 Broadway in Boulder houses an alphabet-soup of federal agencies with weighty handles most commonly known by their acronyms: NIST, NOAA and the lower-profile NTIA.

That, and the four Nobel prizes in physics that have been won for work at NIST, would spell success in any language. However, lab officials are now pointing to acceptance of a 20-year master plan update as critical to ensuring that kind of track record can be extended across future generations.

The document includes a plan for construction of new buildings, renovation of existing structures and more over the next two decades.

Research associate Matthew Hummon assembles a device for photonic wavelength reference at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder on Nov. 17. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

"This is a site that was established in the '50s. (President) Dwight Eisenhower came here and dedicated the building that you're in now," said Kent Rochford, Boulder labs director for NIST. "Technology has advanced dramatically, and we have really got to the point where the work that we do can't be supported by what is essentially a very aged infrastructure."

The building Rochford was referencing was Building 1, also known as the Radio Building, which was completed in 1954 and dedicated by Eisenhower on Sept. 14 of that year.

The consequences of working in such an environment are considerable.

It means, Rochford said, that "our work is very inefficient. We're a precision measurement laboratory and it's difficult to make measurements precisely when the environment's swinging, when you can't control the humidity, when pipes are clanging and you're getting microsonic vibrations.

"It's become very challenging, so we need a facility that better meets the challenges of measurement science."

Don Archibald, a facility engineer, inspects a roof leak Nov. 17 at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

The master plan represents a significant reimagining of the campus's roads and entrances, parking, pedestrian and bicycle access to and through the site, open space, landscaping and stormwater management, as well as site utilities infrastructure, energy and water conservation, and sustainability.

The period for public comments on both the draft master plan and the draft environmental assessment ends Dec. 5.

The master plan is termed by NIST — which serves as the Department of Commerce's "landlord" for all three agencies sharing the campus — as "aspirational." The end-product will be subject to many variables, including the year-to-year appropriations forthcoming from Congress.

"But if we don't have a plan, we'll never get there," said Don Archibald, NIST's capital assets manager for the Boulder campus.

Council member 'super excited'

Surrounded by Boulder neighborhoods on three sides, with the treasured backdrop of the Flatirons to the west, the laboratories have a dominant presence, which its architects and designers have strived to prevent from becoming monolithic.

Accordingly, advocates of the draft master plan emphasize what it won't do on the labs' 206 acres, almost as much as what it will do.

"The actual square footage in size of the campus is not going to grow substantially, and neither is the population," Archibald said. "That's one of the things we factored in, is how can we get rid of inefficient buildings, consolidate it, but still keep the same relative footprint that we have?"

In terms of hard numbers, the draft master plan envisions only modest increases in personnel, with 212 people to be added across the three agencies, bringing those employed there from 1,761 to 1,973.

In square footage, the growth for the three would jump from 1,254,174 to 1,419,626, for a net total of 165,452 new square feet of space. One way the physical space limit will be moderated is that nearly half of the new construction will be offset by removal of more than 153,000 feet worth of existing, aged infrastructure.

Details of everything that could come to pass in the next 20 years are laid out across 178 pages in the draft master plan. Its highlights emphasize a consolidation of administration, services and amenities, plus the encouragement of cross-collaboration of scientists and creating better linkages of research buildings and pedestrian space.

Designers hope to create a "welcoming entry" to the property, propose an enhanced conference center, more structured parking, renewable energy features and an overall cohesive theme, with replacement research buildings organized around a quad. New construction would do nothing, planning documents state, to impede the existing view of the mountains from Broadway.

Rochford was among those from NIST who presented the plans to a meeting of the Boulder City Council on Oct. 18. The reception from city officials is, at this point, enthusiastic.

"We were super-excited about what we saw, actually," said Boulder City Councilman Sam Weaver. "It looked like the master plan process was going to turn what is several disparate parts of the labs into a more focused arrangement of buildings, and the flow of people through the space was going to be greatly improved."

Boulder City Councilwoman Lisa Morzel was no less positive in her views on the plans.

"I think what they have proposed is extremely reasonable, and as a scientist, of course, I think it's pretty cool that they are expanding here in Boulder, and staying here," she said.

She recalled that DOC-city relations were more strained around NOAA's construction between 1996 and 1998 of the 405,000-square-foot David Skaggs Research Center on the Broadway campus, which she attributes largely to ineffective communication between the government entities.

"But this time," Morzel said, "they have shot it out of the park in terms of really reaching out to us and communicating their plans and really working with us, and they don't have to. But we get much more for all sides if we all work together."

Neither Weaver nor Morzel said they had heard anything from the labs' residential neighbors about their future construction plans.

Boulder policy adviser Carl Castillo said the relationship between the city and the Department of Commerce is guided by a memorandum of agreement, which addresses such things as square footage and height limits, and preserving sightlines from Broadway. The city enjoys "input" opportunities in the process, but because the labs are on federal property, the city does not have what Castillo called "thumbs-up, thumbs-down" powers, providing the MOA is adhered to.

Castillo convened a group of more than a half-dozen city staff to discuss the draft master plan on Nov. 18, and said the tone of the meeting was positive.

City planner Jean Gatza was in attendance at that session. While the city will submit its own comments to the Department of Commerce by the Dec. 5 deadline, she indicated they would be supportive, and focused largely on issues including the hoped-for continued cooperation with the city's Open Space and Mountain Parks department, respect for neighborhood concerns, pedestrian and bicycle access, and more.

"They have done quite a bit of extensive outreach to get the word out and encourage people to comment," Gatza said.

Scientist cites Yogi Berra

In the bowels of Wing 5 of Building 1 on a recent morning, John Kitching was watching as senior research associate Matthew Hummon assembled a device for photonic wavelength reference, while bemoaning their current work environment.

He was standing, as he spoke, in the somewhat dingy looking lab that nevertheless several years ago made headlines with the development of the world's first chip-scale atomic clock.

"One thing you may notice," Kitching said, looking around, "there's no temperature control at all in this lab. We're lucky that it's underground. So, it's actually like doing experiments in a slightly clean cave."

Very clean — and temperature controlled, to within plus or minus 1 degree Celsius, would be far preferable.

"The main thing is that it's an un-temperature-controlled environment," Kitching said. "So what happens is that when temperature varies in the lab, the instruments that we make are highly precise — and sometimes, very accurate. And as the temperature varies, the instruments also vary, in terms of their output. You don't want that at all."

Rochford was succinct: "A dirty cave doesn't work for a clean room."

A walk down the basement level of Wing 5 of Building 1 revealed a plastic bucket parked strategically, to catch dripping steam from old pipes overhead.

A joke among NIST staff members is, "How many floods have you been through here?" They're not talking about floods outdoors. The reference is instead to situations such as a scientist that twice had overhead structural leaks destroy her valuable computers.

"It's going to get worse as the building continues to degrade." Kitching said. "And if we don't start now or very soon, this space is just going to be unusable. So, anyway, it's definitely a concern of mine and it really does impede our progress. It absolutely does."

Officials have not put even a rough price tag on executing the master plan, given the uncertain year-to-year dynamics of federal funding, the difficulty of projecting construction costs on a 20-year endeavor, and the fluid nature of the current plans.

It won't be cheap, however. When NIST built is new Precision Measurement Laboratory, rechristened last year for legendary NIST lab director Katharine Blodgett Gebbie, who died in August, the cost was $118.6 million — for one building.

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